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"HP" (standing for "Hit Points" or "Health Points") is a term commonly found in sci-fi and fantasy role-playing games. Can anyone give me a clue as to how to translate this into Russian?

Specifically, I need the abbreviation equivalent if there is one, or else a very short word. If you give an acceptable synonym (e.g. "life" in English), please tell me what that word's closest equivalent is in English.

In this case I'm talking about the "HP" of a human character, so something like "life" or "life force" may also work. But I'm sure there must be a standard term since there are many Russian gamers.

Quassnoi
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Engineer
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  • Haha, do you want to play Pokemon in Russian? (For the record, I don't know the answer, I just like the question.) – Chill2Macht Dec 14 '16 at 18:01
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    Очки здоровья, либо очки жизни (англ. health points, либо hit points; сокращённо HP) — величина в ролевых и компьютерных играх, определяющая максимальное количество урона, которое может получить объект. – V.V. Dec 14 '16 at 18:15
  • The shortest way to say that in Russian is "сила". – Yellow Sky Dec 14 '16 at 18:20
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    "Сила" is not character's "life" but its damage power. @YellowSky – Abakan Dec 14 '16 at 18:49
  • @Abakan - Actually it all depends on how you call it. – Yellow Sky Dec 14 '16 at 19:17
  • I've just realized that we have экспа for experience points but nobody says something like that about HP – shabunc Dec 14 '16 at 21:30
  • @shabunc хэпэ или хелсы же – Pavel Mayorov Dec 15 '16 at 10:15
  • @PavelMayorov говорят так да, надо ж, прошляпил я ) - всегда слышал просто "здоровья" – shabunc Dec 15 '16 at 10:23
  • "хиты" ещё говорят геймеры, но для перевода не очень подходит – alamar Dec 15 '16 at 11:40
  • So, 'hit points' is measure of health or damage? I used to think that it is the latter... – ddbug Dec 19 '16 at 10:25
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    @ddbug "hit points/здоровье" - is meaning of health. Damage called - урон – Reishin Dec 27 '16 at 17:26
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    @cocopop: please don't engage in rollback wars like this. The author has a clear preference for the wording of their own answer. Their answer is perfectly understandable, even though its English might not be up to your standards. If you still think that the wording can be improved, please invite the author into a chat room and discuss it with them prior to making any changes. Thank you. – Quassnoi Nov 28 '23 at 13:26
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    Please use a chat room, or, better yet, an instant messenger of your choice to settle personal disagreements. Thank you – Quassnoi Nov 29 '23 at 20:55

5 Answers5

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It's usually "жизнь" or "здоровье". It's okay to say "у меня осталось всего 14 жизни" (I have only 14 HP left) or "здоровья/жизни совсем мало осталось" (I'm low on HP).

CocoPop
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Abakan
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  • Thank you. Do you have an abbreviation like HP for this in Russian? Or is "жизнь" the shortest form? – Engineer Dec 14 '16 at 19:34
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    @ArcaneEngineer no, but Russian gamers usually use "ХП" (as calque). For example: У меня осталось 100 хп (I have only 100 HPs). – Aer Dec 14 '16 at 21:21
  • @ArcaneEngineer If you need it for speaking, then "жизнь" is short enough (only one syllable, you cannot make it less). If you need it for writing on the srcreen, there are some possibilities of course to make it shorter. – Abakan Dec 15 '16 at 09:04
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    I'd add to comment by @DK. that "жизнь" is mostly used when talking about lives (like in Mario) and "здоровье" is used for HP (like in Diablo) – Alissa Dec 27 '16 at 14:18
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It depends on what you're playing. When we play LARP in Russian, we typically use the word хиты (sing. хит). When playing computer games, we transliterate HP as ХП (read as [хэпэ]). You may see expressions like полХП ("Half of the HP bar"), треть ХП etc. It isn't uncommon to translate "HP" (Health Points) directly as Очки здоровья, abbreviated to ОЗ.

If you use the "wrong" word, for example, say "У меня мало хитов осталось" while playing a computer game, or "Мало [хэпэ]" when playing LARP, you'll sound... strange? :) I've actually never heard ОЗ from any kind of gamer.

Keep in mind that some systems use different units to measure damage. For example, Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop uses "health levels" that are pretty much the same for all humanoid characters. It would be wrong to translate that as either хиты, ОЗ or ХП; translate it directly as "уровни здоровья", or, if you want, as "уровни ранений" etc.

Using the word "life" (жизнь) isn't really common, since games that made you lose one of several lives for making a mistake stayed somewhere in the 80s, most games don't use that concept. I'd expect an expression like that from a kid (because kids' language is a bit different from adult language, and is a bit stuck in time), or from a mom who's also stuck.

Awesome question, mate, thank you for that. If you need any clarification, ask in the comments.

CocoPop
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R.I.P.30.12.21Baskakov_Dmitriy
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"Жизнь" is actually "life", as in "cats have nine lives", not "cats have nine HP". If you have both Hit Points and Lives, using жизнь for both would be very confusing.

You can say "100% жизни" for 100% HP, if you only have HP. For Russian gamers, it's also very common to use English words but to write them with Russian letters: "хит поинтс" for "Hit Points".

CocoPop
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Marat
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  • It's okay, as I opted for здоровье=health. Maybe this answer will clarify for others. Cheers. – Engineer Dec 14 '16 at 21:36
  • That's not quite right. If one has 9 lives, it would mean that she can die 8 times and only ninth will be lethal (in other words, it can escape death 8 times). Having 9 HP indicates how many injuries you can stand before you die, it has nothing to do with escaping a close death. – Alissa Dec 27 '16 at 14:22
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Часто так и называют - хиты. "Сколько у тебя хитов?"

user31264
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As a Russian gamer, I have to say there's no acceptable counterpart for HP in Russian. Even in Russian, UI developers leave HP/MP as is because, I believe, no one has ever found a non-cringe alternative.

I have seen a "working" translation of health-bar ("полоса здоровья"), but that's a bar, not HP.

Even in dialogue, when we speak about HP, we spell transliterate it as "хп" and not some other alternative.

So to summarize:

  • If we're talking about life, like hearts in Zelda, it's acceptable to use "жизни" as in "одна жизнь", "две жизни", "пять жизней".
  • If we're talking about a health bar, a literal translation like "полоса здоровья" — and more rarely "Индикатор здоровья" — is acceptable.
  • If we're talking about HP (as in numbers), there's no good translation (that I know of). "Здоровье" can be used, but it's not something you put in UI since it's a lot of letters.
  • If we're talking about HP but in terms of a percentage, using "100% здоровья" or "здоровье: 100%" is acceptable.

"хит/хиты/хитов" sounds bad and childish. It evokes vague associations like literally hit (удар), hit as in "bestseller" or "popular", and hit as in "heat" to name a few.

CocoPop
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Archirk
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